George w. casey jr. - Federation of American Scientists

y First Lieutenant Tyler Jost
In 1994, a group of relatively unknown Afghan students
based in southwestern Pakistan, and now
commonly known as the Taliban, began a campaign
to oust the Burhanuddin Rabbani regime in Kabul.
This article examines the Taliban’s first military engagements
in the battle for Kandahar Province and
the ways in which the Taliban tailored their strategy
to fit the political realities in which they operated. In
doing so, it argues that the kinetic aspects of the operation
are necessary but insufficient to understand
military outcomes. The non-kinetic components of
Taliban operations played an equally, if not more,
significant role in securing the Taliban’s victory.
The first documented kinetic operation began
on 12 October 1994. A group of Taliban militants
raided a Hizb-i Islami arms depot, which was located
fifteen kilometers north of Spin Boldak (See
Figure 1) and was operated by the political-military
network under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. 1
Figure 1. Taliban Activity in the Battle of Kandahar
Hiding themselves in two tarpaulin-covered Hino
trucks and reportedly paying off forty-two highway
checkpoints along the way, Taliban drivers
under the command of Mullah Omar and Mullah
Borjan transported the fighters to the depot undetected,
took enemy commander Mullah Akhtar Jan
by surprise and quickly secured the area. 2 In capturing
the depot, the Taliban gained approximately
18,000 Kalashnikovs, dozens of artillery pieces, and
hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition. 3
More importantly, the victory lent credibility to the
Taliban movement vis-à-vis the array of competing
warlord networks. 4
The second major operation came in early
November, after a local warlord named Mansur
Achakzai stopped a Pakistani military convoy containing
thirty vehicles loaded with medicine, consumer
goods and foodstuffs. The convoy was
detained near Takht-e Pul (See Figure 1) in hopes
of exacting political concessions from Islamabad.
Mansur and two other Kandahar commanders–Amir
Lalai and Ustaz Haleem–sought two outcomes: To
tax Pakistani trade transiting through Kandahar,
and to end Pakistani support for the Taliban movement.
5 On 3 November, Taliban commander Mullah
Borjan led two hundred followers in assaulting and
defeating forces detaining the convoy.
In the following days, Mullah Omar and Mullah
Borjan, although outnumbered, initiated a final maneuver
to secure the provincial capital. According
to one former Pakistani military officer, government
forces under General Naqib consisted of “2,500
troops, 120 tanks, 80 to 90 artillery pieces, six
MiG-21 fighter aircraft, and six Mi-8 helicopters.” 6
However, Taliban leaders successfully co-opted
58 Military Intelligence